Amtrak’s Post-Attack Ridership Surge Is Ebbing

The surge of passengers who flocked to Amtrak trains in the days after the terrorist attacks has begun to subside, dimming hopes that the intercity rail service could attract lots of new passengers amid the airline crisis.

Travel agents and industry officials said that after the initial jump in Amtrak ridership, which included many air travelers stranded by canceled flights, the rail service’s business was undercut by the overall downturn in travel.

“People aren’t flocking to other modes of transportation. They’re just not traveling, period. The fear factor is still there,” said Vernae Graham, an Amtrak spokeswoman.

In addition, critics say Amtrak is inadequate to replace the airlines over the long term, even if the rail service is picking up some would-be air travelers now.

With the notable exception of the high-speed trains along the Boston-to-Washington corridor, Amtrak’s trains are too slow and its routes too inconvenient to compete effectively against airlines, these critics say.

“Amtrak isn’t delivering product that the traveling consumer wants,” said Joseph Vranich, a former member of the Amtrak Reform Council, a federal oversight panel.

Amtrak officials provided few specifics concerning ridership totals following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They said, however, that ridership nationwide was up an estimated 17% in the first week after the terrorism. On Wednesday, Amtrak said the increase since the attacks had fallen to somewhere between 10% and 13%. They declined to provide week-by-week or daily breakdowns of ridership.

An informal survey conducted Wednesday by Carlson Wagonlit Travel, one of the nation’s biggest travel agency chains, also suggested only a slight switch to riding the rails.

A sampling of 100 of the chain’s offices across the country found that 10% booked significant numbers of customers on Amtrak since Sept. 11. A poll taken last week, focusing mainly on business patterns before the attacks, put the percentage of agents regularly doing business with Amtrak at 7%.

“It’s been a minimal increase overall,” said Steve Loucks, a spokesman for Minneapolis-based Carlson Wagonlit.

Even travelers who have tried Amtrak say it’s hard to beat jetliners for long trips despite the new safety concerns since Sept. 11. For instance, Michael L. Tusken, a Los Angeles lawyer, said he enjoyed taking Amtrak on business trips to Delaware and Pennsylvania when he lived in the Washington area.

Compared with airlines, Tusken said, “the trains are more comfortable, the seats are wider, and you can get up and get something to eat at your leisure.”

But Tusken’s current job requires him to travel occasionally from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a business trip that he says would be unrealistic aboard Amtrak. For one thing, the closest the Amtrak train gets to downtown San Francisco is Oakland. And it takes nearly 11 hours and 45 minutes to travel from Los Angeles to Oakland by Amtrak--if the train is on time.

Other California travelers are turned off by Amtrak trips that require both bus and train rides. For instance, the trip from Los Angeles to Fresno involves a two-hour, 15-minute bus ride to Bakersfield, followed by a two-hour train ride to Fresno.

For business travelers, “time is money,” said Joe McClure, a Los Angeles-area travel agent and owner of Montrose Travel. “Corporate travelers don’t have the time to waste getting from point A to point B.”

Kathy Brown, an accounting department staffer for a medical equipment company in Santa Barbara, said she likes to take Amtrak to Los Angeles to visit family and friends. And these days, she is worried about flight safety. Still, for long vacation, Brown said, Amtrak is out of the question. “It would take me two or three days to go where I want to go by Amtrak,” she said.

Amtrak said ridership on interstate trains leaving and entering California rose an estimated 15% to 20% during the first week after the terrorist attacks, but that the gain has since tapered off to 10% to 15%. For trains traveling within the state, ridership has been flat since Sept. 11, Amtrak said.

Officials at Amtrak, which is under pressure to wean itself from federal operating subsidies by next year, still hope to capitalize on the current opportunity to gain passengers. Last week, they asked Congress for $3 billion to improve security, as a result of the terrorist attacks, and to renovate facilities to handle more passengers.

The growing interest in Congress to expand rail service also prompted a proposal Tuesday by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to provide $71 billion in financing for high-speed passenger and freight railways.

That proposal, however, largely snubs Amtrak, aiming the money for commuter rail systems and other potential high-speed systems. A committee spokesman, Steve Hansen, said, “The bill is for states and federal infrastructure. . . . We keep Amtrak completely out of the equation, because Amtrak has proven that it is incapable of doing a lot of things.”